The police tape and the fourth shot

OPEN THE RECORD

Sources & limits.

Numbered citations in each article identify the relevant sources. These records have different purposes and evidentiary weight.

1. HSCA final report, part I-B: scientific acoustical evidence of a second gunman ↗

   The committee’s acoustics finding: a “high probability” that two gunmen fired, one from the knoll.

2. HSCA final report: summary of findings and recommendations (1979) ↗

   The House committee’s headline findings: Oswald fired three shots and the fatal one; Kennedy “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy”; Soviet and Cuban governments, organized crime as a group and anti-Castro groups as groups not involved, but individual members not ruled out.

3. HSCA final report, part I-A: Oswald fired three shots ↗

   The committee’s review of the rifle, the wounds and Oswald.

4. National Research Council: Report of the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics, 1982 ↗

   The National Academy panel’s unanimous finding that the sounds on the police recording came about a minute after the shooting.

5. D. B. Thomas, “Echo correlation analysis and the acoustic evidence in the Kennedy assassination revisited,” Science & Justice, 2001 (PubMed) ↗

   A government scientist’s peer-reviewed argument that the knoll shot was real. PubMed blocks scripted fetches; confirmed by search.

6. Linsker, Garwin and others, “Synchronization of the acoustic evidence,” Science & Justice, 2005 ↗

   The reply to Thomas, using crosstalk between radio channels to place the sounds after the shooting.